For Yazidis betrayed by Arab neighbors, ‘It will never be the same’

[Dan193]

https://www.twincities.com/2014/08/25/for-yazidis-betrayed-by-arab-neighbors-it-will-never-be-the-same/
For Yazidis betrayed by Arab neighbors, ‘It will never be the same’
PIONEER PRESS, November 3, 2015

The afternoon before his family fled the onslaught of Sunni militants, Dakhil Habash was visited by three of his Arab neighbors. Over tea, his trusted friend Matlul Mare told him not to worry about the advancing fighters and that no harm would come to him or his Yazidi people.

The men had helped one another over the years: Mare brought supplies to Habash’s community in the years after the U.S. invasion, when travel outside their northern enclave was too dangerous for Yazidis. Mare bought tomatoes and watermelon from Habash’s farm and sometimes borrowed money.

But his friend’s assurances did not sit right with Habash. That night, he gathered his family and fled. Soon afterward, he said, he found out that Mare had joined the militants and was helping them hunt down Yazidi families.

“Our Arab neighbors turned on all of us,” said Habash, who recounted his story from a makeshift refugee camp on the banks of a fetid stream near the city of Zakho, in Iraqi Kurdistan. “We feel betrayed. They were our friends.”

It would be the last time the men saw each other, as they were swept into different spheres of Iraq’s fracturing sectarian landscape, where militants from the Islamic State are filling their ranks with the country’s disenfranchised Sunni Arabs.

Some Iraqis fear that the plight of the Yazidis, thousands of whom are missing or have been massacred by Islamic State fighters, could be a harbinger of a return to the sectarian nightmare of 2006 and 2007, when neighbors turned against neighbors.

Many Sunni tribes have not supported Islamic State’s advance. But the group has benefited from widespread bitterness among Sunni Arabs over perceived mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. When the Islamic State arrived, officials say, some Sunnis saw an opportunity to reclaim some of the supremacy they enjoyed under Saddam Hussein’s rule.

As the Islamic State has advanced, more than 400,000 Yazidis, who follow an ancient religion with roots in Muslim and Zoroastrian traditions, have been forced to flee their enclaves. The humanitarian crisis helped prompt President Barack Obama to authorize U.S. airstrikes to halt the slaughter, a decisive step in checking the militants’ advance across northern Iraq.

“I called my closest friend after we fled, an Arab man who owned a shop in our village,” said a Yazidi man who identified himself only as Haso, declining to give his first name out of fear of reprisal. “When I asked him what he was doing, he told me he was looking for Yazidis to kill.”

The friend denied Haso’s account. But he grew angry when a journalist referred to the militant group as ISIS, an acronym for one of the group’s names, because the militants now prefer to be called the Islamic State.

Another Yazidi refugee, Qasim Omar, said that just before the Islamic State reached his village, Arab neighbors began flying the group’s black flag from their homes.

“Before ISIS came, the Arab villagers had already helped them,” said Omar, 63. “I couldn’t believe it. They were our brothers.”

The extent of the collusion is hard to map. Many Yazidi families interviewed did not have firsthand information of Arab neighbors aiding the Islamic State. And in some cases, Arabs risked their lives to save persecuted friends.

But amid the chaos, an emotional truth has emerged: the Islamic State has destroyed the peaceful coexistence that many northern towns once cherished.

“We would like to go back to our village, but we will never have a relationship with the Arabs anymore,” Habash said. “It will never be the same.”

Habash’s niece, Ahlan Mohsin Kalo, was not as lucky. She and her family stayed for two days before deciding to flee. But on their way out of town, Mare spotted them, according to villagers and Kachal.

Her father has not heard from her since. “They didn’t have time to run,” Mohsin Habash said.

Though Mohsin Habash’s family suffered because of one Arab neighbor, he pointed out that they were saved with the help of another: a longtime friend who led a convoy of Yazidi refugees to safety at great risk.

The convoy drove through the night, passing Islamic State-controlled territories undetected. Mohsin Habash believes it was because his friend knew the Arab areas better than any of the Yazidis.

Hours later, they reached Syria. From there, Habash’s friend introduced them to another Arab man who took the group the rest of the way to the border with Kurdistan.

“He saved us,” Habash said.